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Belfast scientists make major breakthrough in prostate cancer fight

Trials underway to combine chemotherapy and radiotherapy

CATHAL DERVAN,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Monday, September 19, 2011, 7:31 AM

Updated Monday, September 19, 2011, 12:55 PM

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Cancer researchers at work

Photo by Google Images

Researchers at Queens University in Belfast have made a major breakthrough in the treatment of prostate cancer.

The scientists have already begun trials with patients after discovering a way to tackle an advanced and aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to bone.

Although it is considered one of the more treatable cancers, prostate cancers causes major problems for patients when it spreads to the bone and is accountable for over 500 deaths every year in Ireland.

Now the team at Queens University has discovered a safe method of treatment that allows doctors to combine chemotherapy and radiotherapy to tackle the cancer when it is different locations.

The specialist who has led the study told the Irish Examiner that the discovery is a significant development in the fight against prostate cancer.

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Dr Joe O’Sullivan, consultant and senior lecturer at the Centre for Cancer Research, said: “Traditional chemotherapy treatments aren’t always effective in treating aggressive and advanced forms of prostate cancer, so we needed to develop a new treatment which will provide better outcomes for patients with this type of cancer.

“While this combination treatment still has to go to phase two of trials, to know that this combination is safe and feasible as a treatment is a huge step forward.”

Around 2,500 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in Ireland each year.

Trials using the Queens method of treatment are underway in Britain and the Netherlands with 100 patients involved.

Nster.com

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EphraimKibbey | Sep 19, 2011, 05:43 PM EDT

Thanks to Cathal Dervan for covering this, thanks to kinvara7 for the additional updates on those wonderful advancements and thanks to ellenfromcork for that important caveat. It seems that Science is alive and well in Ireland. With the GOP out to cut funding for such useless frivolities as Hurricane flights and Earthquake monitoring here in the states, Ireland may have to keep it alive as they did literacy during the dark ages. Since Science is the stuff of which lives, jobs and wealth are made, it is curious why, at 5:38 pm est, am I only the third commenter here.

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ellenfromcork | Sep 19, 2011, 10:46 AM EDT

Please note this is still what's called a phase one trial. That means it has been determined that the treatment can be safely given to humans. It does not mean that the treatment is in any way effective. That's what the phase two trials are for. The search for the cure for cancer is littered w/ tens of thousands of phase one trials that came to nothing in the phase two trials. Just keep this all in perspective.

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kinvara7 | Sep 19, 2011, 10:20 AM EDT

Congratulations to Dr. O’Sullivan and his team at Queens. There have been some impressive developments in Irish science over the last couple of months; sadly they tend to get overlooked by IC. For example, the Taoiseach recently opened a new centre for Molecular Innovation and Drug Discovery at UCD, which is just Phase 1 of what will be the single largest capital investment (€300m) in third level education in the history of the state. The new centre will house the Institute of Food and Health, the Centre for Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Centre for Nanomedicine. Combine that with the recent large investments at Trinity (where the Taoiseach opened one of the most sophisticated bio-medical research facilities in the world costing €131m), NUIG (€40m new state of the art Engineering building) and UCC (where a new Maritime Research and Testing Centre is to be built for up to 150 research scientists), and a very positive picture of innovation emerges. A few months ago Dr. Andy Wheeler of University College Cork led a team which discovered a hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic as well as a number of new species. It was a terrific success, a new area charted and named by Irishmen using technology developed by Irish companies. Sadly the story was more or less overlooked infavour one of the usual ‘top ten’ lists. It is regrettable that IC writers are unable to give these developments the coverage they deserve. Many on IC talk about leadership and inspiration in politics, but where is it evident in their writing? There are inspiring things taking place but you are failing to cover them.

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